The invention relates to a particular type of air baggage tag which is readily attachable to the handle of an individual piece of luggage, can be run through printing equipment easily, and provide a ticket (receipt) that is readily detachable from the rest of the tag when desired. The invention relates to an improvement over the type of luggage tag illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,845, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
While the luggage tag illustrated in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,845 has had the potential to be an excellent tag--that is, versatile and easy to use--it has never realized its potential because of a wide variety of practical difficulties. Despite extensive efforts to make the luggage tag of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,845 into a commercially successful product, it has not had the necessary properties desired to be successful commercially until the improvements of the present invention.
There have been a number of practical problems associated with the luggage tag of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,845 that has hampered its success, including problems with feeding through a printer. The tag as illustrated in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,845 has had a tendency to jam in the conventional printer with which it has been utilized (e.g., a Datamax 5000 Printer), not feeding properly through the printer, or becoming easily torn. There have been also a wide variety of practical problems including ease of attachment of tongues of the luggage tag to the luggage handle, undesired detachment of the receipt portion from the tongues, and tearing of the tag, particularly the tongue portions.
There are a number of minor improvements that are provided according to the invention, such as the particular paper that is utilized, the provision of the release liner so that it is larger than the face stock and the like. In addition, there are a number of significant revisions that make the difference between a product that is commercially worthwhile and one that is not. The major improvements include the following:
In order to significantly improve the tear resistance, strips of tape of a non-tearing material (e.g., Mylar.RTM.) are applied the full length of the back of the face stock, parallel to the receipt portion edge and spaced only a small portion therefrom. The tape must extend at least the length of the tongue portions, but preferably extends the entire length of the face stock.
The corners of the tag, instead of being square, are rounded so as to allow them to feed through the printer more easily and prevent jams. It is desirable that the radius of the corners in the face stock be less than the radius of the liners, which is possible if the liner is slightly greater in dimension than the face stock.
To prevent separation of the receipt from the tongues during feeding through equipment, or, when not desired, paper ties are provided between the tongues and the receipt. Preferably, at least two ties are provided along each edge of the receipt and the tongues, and a plurality of ties are provided between the bottom of the receipt and the main body of the face stock. The ties preferably have an effective length of about 0.025 inches.
In order to provide proper attachment of the tongues to each other when placed around the luggage handle, yet not to cause adhesive to be scraped onto the luggage handle, a patterned varnish desensitizer is applied over the adhesive along the main body of each the tongue. The adhesive desensitizer is applied from a position about one inch from the end of the tongues to a position past the root of the tongues, while adhesive remains on the receipt portion and the first edge of each of the tongues.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide an effective luggage tag of the type having a pair of tongues for the receipt between the tongues. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention and from the appended claims.